A Moving Story

It’s been a while, I know. No excuses. I was just busy and depressed. The combination meant I was using the very little “give a crap” that I had on things that I had to do so people wouldn’t start to get concerned, like moving and personal hygiene. Let’s talk about moving.

We moved in two big rounds and lots of tiny fragments. For the first round, Sarah and Detective Paranoid came up and helped. We took several trucks full of stuff; all of the non-essential items. Here we are loading up the truck and moving to Prunetucky, just like the Beverly Hillbillies.

That’s Detective Paranoid getting some kid help. His head is not shaped like a pea green polygon in real life. It’s just for the blog. You know, changed to protect the innocent and paranoid.

After the first round or moving, we were left with the basement, which was quite full and all of those things we can’t live without, like clothes, four different blow dryers, 60 bottles of wine. You know, just the necessities. Dave kept his tile saw and six large coffee cans full of nails. Then for a couple of months, every time we went to the ranch, we took some items with us. One would think that the second round would be cake after all of the pre-moving. It wasn’t. It was grueling, torturous, and some other adjective that means really miserable. We barely made it out on time. Our cause was probably not helped by the fact that we went to a charity tequila tasting the night before. However, it was at that tequila tasting that I roped yet another friend into helping us. I would rather forget most of the event but it was about 14 hours long and ended with a coupe de grace that went a little something like this….

It’s early March. Dave and Marsha are 13 hours into the final phase of moving. Marsha I helping Dave unload stuff that took two men to load. Marsha (that’s me!) does not possess man like strength. She is pissed and therefore Dave is pissed. Everyone is hungry; the night is pitch black and it’s threatening rain. The dogs go running off into the night, most likely chasing a deer. We continue to drag the heaviest antique furniture out of the moving van and up the stairs into the garage attic. About 15 minutes later, the terrorist terrier, AKA Lily the Weasel, starts barking a big (for her) angry bark. An alert bark. We try to call them back but they don’t come and neither one of us is in a position to care enough to tromp into the woods looking for them. Minutes later, they return, drooling, snorting and reeking of sulfur. Apparently the deer they were chasing, were really skunks. I wanted to cry but at that point, I hit rock bottom and when you’re at the bottom, you can only look up. I started to laugh that hysterical, maniacal laugh. I am so thankful that we had the moving van because that’s where the dogs spent the night.

The next morning, I went to the Safeway where I purchased four quarts of hydrogen peroxide, some dish soap and a box of Arm and Hammer. The checker looked at my goods, looked at me and deciding I was probably not feeding a strange addiction, said, “Are you doing a science experiment?” I desperately wanted to tell that I think that’s what my life has become but instead I told her that the dogs were skunked last night. “Oh yuck,” she said. “Do you live here?”

“We do. Actually, this happened while we were moving in, last night.”

The checker at the next stand burst out laughing and shouted, “Welcome to Prunedale!” And from that moment forward, I have been in love with the people in this town. By the next week, everyone at the Starbucks knew about our moving and skunking, thanks to my chatty husband. There’s nothing like a skunk story to band people together and create a community. We are home.

So we are officially moved in. There was some trial and tribulation at first but we are settled and living peacefully, more or less. Stay tuned, I have lots of updated photos and fun tales (tails?) from Redemption Farms.